INTEODUCTORY KBMARKS. 23 



fry rigidly enforced, or no permanent good will come from 

 merely stocking the rivers. 



Pennsylvania, on the 30th of March 1866, passed a law 

 making it incumbent on the owners of dams on the Susque- 

 hanna and its tributaries, whether companies or individuals, 

 to erect efficient fishways over such dams by the first of 

 December of that year, and a competent engineer was 

 appointed to see the law enforced. The companies who 

 had bought" the different internal improvements from the 

 state, contended that they were purchased without encum- 

 brance, and resist the law, as some other companies also do, 

 and it is now a matter of litigation. One, however, the 

 Susquehanna Canal Company, acquiesced and constructed 

 a fishway under the supervision of the engineer appointed. 

 The report of this gentleman to the legislature shows that 

 shad in numbers and of large size ascended the fishways 

 in the spring and summer of 1867, and were taken as high 

 up as New Port on the Juniata; the number being vari- 

 ously estimated from ten thousand to eighteen thousand. 

 Numerous fry were also seen in the river during the latter 

 part of the summer, as well as some bodies of Shad that 

 had died, as they frequently do, from the exhausting effects 

 of spawning. This proves conclusively that shad will 

 ascend rivers to new spawning-beds if suitable fishways are 

 provided. To introduce them into tributaries which they 

 may not enter, or to repopulate the Susquehanna the more 

 speedily, artificial propagation must of course be resorted 

 to. If it should be decided that the Act of March 30th 

 1866 is not constitutional, it remains for the state to defray 



